Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Wisdom Poof
I am currently reading Coelho's The Alchemist. I know, I know, I am reading it a zillion years too late but I really did not want to read a cliché. I am glad though that I put off reading it because I think it's message is most relevant to me now. If I read it 3 years back or even a week back, it would not be personally as thought-provoking as it is now.
The "lessons" being said in the book are nothing really new or even fascinating to me. I mean, come on, I spent a good part of my life learning all the wisdom the book is conveying. But what I find ironic is that oftentimes we know but we don't ever do.
All of us have ingrained wisdom in our subconscious. Sometimes we tap them, most of the time we don't. However, I feel, sometimes we allow all this wisdom to fade away simply because being wise does not automatically mean being practical. For example, in The Alchemist one message that is repeatedly there is that the universe conspires when you are trying to reach your destiny. I mean, people, who did know that? I knew that way before I even read this book. I knew that as a toddler! We all know that and yet we choose to forget it because we want to live miserable lives by believing that this material world is wiser than us.
All of us are wise. We all know what the essential truths are. We all know what would make us happy. We all know what causes our misery. We all know we exist for a reason. We all know that the world is our oyster and not the other way around. And yet, we are all unhappy, confused and lost. We are all these things because we all choose to live in fear.
At the very core of it, sometimes, I believe we are all afraid to be happy. We choose to live in misery because misery is more acccepted that happiness. You are free to challenge me on this but I think we pass judgement on happy (as in really happy) people than the morose ones. We question those people who are really happy being cleaners and judge them as unambitious. We find people who are always giddy weird and annoying. We judge motivational speakers as "too much bullshit."
This world thrives on misery, pain and confusion. We all choose to believe in the negative than on the positive. We set ourselves up for pain and failure. We all secretly want to be sad because being happy in a planet full of sadness means being different.
I really don't know the point of this post. I completely went off-track from my original thesis statement, hehe. Well, maybe there is no point but there are questions. Questions which will be asked, when the answers have come.
1 comments:
Hi Erica,
Yes, I'm back in writing (and I'm happy for that) :)
By the way, it's an interesting post..not that I agree completely with all you wrote, but it's an interesting point of view :p
...and somehow (maybe coz i just saw it a few days ago) it reminds me of a movie called Waking Life (http://imdb.com/title/tt0243017/), a semi-animation movie that talks about life, death, the universe,dreams...
It looks random but it's really not. It's a cool movie!! :)
Anyway, loved the post!
with smile,
ali
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